Bears Deal With Adversity

Bears Deal With Adversity

Scott Leber reports that injuries, a losing streak and a short week make for challenging times for the Bears.

LAKE FOREST-Injuries and a short week add up to a hectic time for the Bears. But they’ll try to pull it all together before they take the field Thursday night against the Giants.

Rest and recovery are a necessity for NFL players…but the Bears won’t get much of either this week. That’s the challenge of playing a Thursday night game.

"Just physically getting ready to play," says Jay Cutler of the short week challenge. "Most of the older guys including myself by Thursday you’re just starting to feel a little better, and by Friday you start to get back to full speed, so physically just being able to go at full speed on Thursday is a challenge."

"It’s not something that’s new," says Bears coach Marc Trestman. "It’s something that everybody goes through. There’s pretty much a universal way of trying to get it done. It’s not easy."

Even with the two recent losses Trestman sees some positives.

"I just feel like you see signs of us getting better," says Trestman. "At being a good football team all the way around."

What Trestman isn’t seeing is improvement in the pass rush.

"We’ve still got to work at our pass rush. We’ve got to get closer. We’ve got to knock them down a little bit more."

With Henry Melton and now Nate Collins both down for the rest of the season with injuries the most pressing issue facing the Bears is a lack of depth on the defensive line. And with this being a short week there’s not enough time to bring in somebody new and have them ready to go against the Giants on Thursday night.

"We’ve got to go out Thursday night with the guys that we have that are healthy. As coaches we’ve got to get them ready to play, and they have to go out and play at their best, and everybody’s got to pick it up from there. They’ve got to help them get through it."

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